Shaving razors are widely known and used for shaving various body parts such as faces and legs. Conventional wet-shave razors include a shaving head having shaving blades releasably or permanently mounted to a generally elongated razor handle. Razors having blades permanently mounted to the razor handle are sometimes referred to as safety razors and are discarded as a whole when the cutting edge of the blade has become dull. With removable blade razors, the blade unit is releasably mounted to the handle and is discarded when the cutting edge of the blade becomes dull. Various configurations of razor handle and razor blade units are found in the prior art.
During so-called wet-shaving, water or a shaving lubricant such as a shaving cream is applied to the area of the body about to be shaved. The razor blades are then positioned against the lubrified body area and the handle is used to pull the blade along the skin across the area to be shaved. The blades are angled so as to cut the unwanted hair adjacent the skin. The operation is repeated until the shaving operation is considered satisfactory. Razor handles are often recycled for various shaving operations. Indeed, with removable blade housing razors, the same handle is used indefinitely as only the blade housing is changed when needed. The increase in cost associated with even more sophisticated safety razors is such that they are also often reused a number of times before being discarded. A need thus arises for storing razor handles between uses.
The prior art is replete with various structures attempting to provide a solution to the problem of storing razor handles between uses. Some prior art solutions such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,317 naming Aaron TIRAM as inventor and issued Jun. 22, 1999 and U.S. Design Pat. No. 369,049 naming William SCAGLIONE as inventor issued Apr. 23, 1996 propose separate holders for mounting the handles to a supporting surface. This type of structure suffers from numerous drawbacks including the fact that the holders need to be secured to a generally flat surface. Also, they require either permanent fixing which may prove detrimental to the surface and/or to the holder or are reduced to being releasably mounted to a vertical surface with consequent potential risk of falling off from the surface and creating a dangerous situation if a razor is attached thereto.
These prior art structures also suffer from the fact that the intended user needs to purchase an additional structure, namely the supporting structure. Also, the supporting structure is not always available, as for example, when the intended user travels to a remote location. The user would then need to carry not only razors but supporting structures therefor.
Other prior art documents such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,198 naming Claire MCCOY as inventor issued Nov. 24, 1998; U.S. Design Pat. No. 283,260 naming Gabriel ALVAREZ as inventor, issued Apr. 1, 1986 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,645 naming Gerald AUDET as inventor and issued Feb. 24, 1987 propose holders formed integrally with or extending from the razor itself. The purposed structures, although presenting the advantage of being part of the razor, nevertheless suffer from numerous drawbacks. For example, most of these prior art structures protrude from the razor handle, and, they increase the volume required for transportation and storage. Also, the protruding sections are subjected to being broken-off during shipping and handling. Furthermore, the prior art structures are designed to support the razor with its razor head positioned above the handle. Consequently, water mixed with shaving and/or other lubricants and cut pieces of hair will tend to drip down onto the handle and dry thereon leading to a messy handle before the latter is subsequently used. Furthermore, most of the prior art structures are overly complex leading to increased undue manufacturing costs.
Other prior art structures such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,485 naming Jill Marie SHURTLEFF et al. as inventors issued Nov. 18, 1997 discloses a handle structure defining a section that could be used for suspending the razor on a supporting structure. However, the handle configuration is not specifically intended for that use and, hence, also suffers from drawbacks. For example, the structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,485 cannot be suspended from a closed loop-type of supporting structure and is not specifically adapted to being hung on a supporting structure. Accordingly, such structure can only be unstably attached to a limited type of supporting structures. Consequently, there exists a need for an improved razor handle having an attachment structure.